642 Things to Write About (A Christmas Short)
by nine.the8thgirl
Summary: In the midst of Christmas shopping, and in an era where we'd rather receive than give, a certain someone wants to do something good for someone he offended this Christmas day. Short Story. Cover Image from Pinterest


**TRIS**

 _'Caleb, I'm not going to buy you a human size teddy bear for Sarah. My hand is full already with all these last meeting shopping gifts you guys wanted me to buy'_ I say through the phone. My phone rings and I know I have another message. I sigh, trying to make my way through the crowd of people. I bump into people, making sure nothing of my things fall apart. Christmas Eve was tomorrow and even if it's not last minute per se, there's still a lot of people who was shopping today. Probably don't want to get in with the people who'll go shopping for food tomorrow.

 _'Come on, Tris. Just call me, I can pick you up.'_ Caleb says. I roll my eyes even if he won't see it. I look around; Why can't I seem to see _F-B-._

 _'Then why don't you just go here and buy it yourself. I promise to wait for you. Besides, I'm like on the other side of the mall, right now.'_ I tell him. I hear him sigh.

 _'There's a lot of bookstores there. Why do you have to go to the farthest?'_ He asks me.

 _'Because it's where I know I can find that book. You guys are lame at looking for gifts so I'll buy myself one. Anyways, I got to go. Just text me.'_ I say, hanging up.

I fix my bag on my shoulder and get make myself especially small so that I can insert myself between people. If I knew there were going to be these many people today, I wouldn't have been out. These are the moments I am grateful I am small. Makes it easier to move about. Once I see the floating sign of the bookstore I let out a breath. _That wasn't easy to find._ I enter and leave all my shopping bags on the baggage counter and get ready for my searching.

Of course, I also plan to buy books for my family and friends but number one mission was to find _**the**_ book.

I first go to where I first saw it. It wasn't there. Damn. I knew that they were going to move things around. I hate why bookstores have to rearrange everything just as Christmas comes. It's not as if it was easy to find things in here before it the arrangement was changed. I sigh and walk around, trying to find that book. I knew that book from every angle.

As I walk around the book store, I grab books that I think would be decent to give. I even get Robert one even though I know he rarely reads. As I was rounding the corner, my phone rings.

 _'Hey_.' It was Christina.

 _'Hi'_

 _'Where are you?'_

 _'F-B-'_ I say, rounding the corner. I already had almost six books in my hand. I knew I needed a basket. I grunt. Who cares, now.

 _'Are you still looking_ for '642 Things to Write About _'_? _You found that three months ago, why didn't you buy it then?'_

 _'I didn't think I would want it until now'_ Just as I was about to go to the last aisle, something flashed into my peripheral vision as if it was calling on me. I jump in joy and Christina might have heard it through the phone.

 _'Found it, huh?'_ I saw that it was the only copy available.

As I reached towards it, and finally held it, someone was holding the other end. I looked up, prepared to scare this person with my intimidating look but then he's taller and _kind of cute._

 _Snap out of it, Tris._ I tell myself.

I raise one of my brow and shake my head, 'No.' I say with conviction with my other hand still holding my phone to my ear. Christina might have heard me because she was already calling my name. I shut my phone and looked at him, determined to get what I want.

* * *

 **FOUR**

 _'Yeah, Zeke. I'll probably be home in an hour if there's not much people in the book store, two if otherwise_.' I hear him snicker.

 _'Remember the gift for your niece.'_ Zeke says.

 _'I wouldn't go to a bookstore if I forgot.'_ I tell him, hanging up after. It wasn't that hard to see the bookstore from where I was. Shauna did say that this is where you can find the book. I walk towards the bookstore hoping that there wasn't much people. Fortunately, when I got there, it wasn't full. I release a relieved sigh. The bookstore is big though and for someone who didn't really read much, this was going to be a challenge; for starters, I don't think I've been in this bookstore more than once.

I sigh and head to the back aisle, reading the labels above the shelves in order to guide me. I'm not going to act as if I knew the place, so who cares if people stared. Thankfully, I was tall enough to see the labels. When I saw the _journals for artists,_ which is really specific by the way, I made my way towards it. I knew the cover of the book. My niece rubbed the cover in my face. She even sent me a couple of screen shots of the book she found on Google. I basically committed to memory what the inside and most especially what the outside looked like. When I passed that aisle, I saw it in my peripheral vision. It seemed to be glinting. I also saw a girl, a rather pretty girl _. Okay, that's not the point, Four_. She was looking at the same part of the bookshelf. Hopefully, what she wanted was the one beside it. But when I reached for it, she reached for it to. It didn't seem as if she saw me until we were both holding the book.

She rose a brow at me. I grinned.

"Hey" I tell her, still holding the book. She just hang up on someone. _Rude._ I thought. She didn't answer.

"I won't say I got here first. But, I really need this book." I tell her.

She sighs and I thought she was going to remove her hand but her grip tightened and she tugged on the book.

"I need it too." She said, firmly.

"It's Christmas, come on." I tell her. She narrow her eyes on me.

"This is my future." she says making me smile at how weird that sounded.

"A book is your future." I ask her. She clearly wasn't happy.

"I'm a writer. A book is always my future." She says. Interesting.

"This is for my cousin."

"Your cousin can wait. I've been waiting for this for months."

"Well, you can wait a little longer, maybe."

"Well, maybe she can as well"

"She's dying."

"What?" she was thinking. I was lying of course. My niece was well and good. But I've watched this trick from the Big Bang. I kind of hope she doesn't know the trick but somehow, I kind of wanted her to get the reference.

She let go. No.

Well, yes, I guess but I felt bad now.

"Fine." I smile and then she removed her phone from her pocket.

"Can you tell her something for me?" she ask. I nod.

"Can you tell her what a lying person his uncle is and that she grows old to be a great writer." She says and then walks pass me and I hear her talking to someone on the phone. She sounds sad.  
I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and sigh. I hold the book in my hand and look across the aisle. There wasn't anyone there. I look at the bookshelf and there were books that caught my eye. I look at the book and see what's inside. Before it was too late, I try to catch up with her. Thankfully, the line was long, and she was still on the line, buying.

Silently, I walk pass her, making sure she doesn't see me and tell the counter guy something. The guy behind the counter smiles, as he's part of something great.

* * *

 **TRIS**

I sigh as I walk inside the room. Christina meets me, with a spoon in her mouth.

"I'm going to assume that your day didn't go okay." Christina says. I wanted to be mad but in the end, I kind of wanted that guy's niece to grow old as a writer. Writing was never a go to thing to do because what can a writer really achieve, right?

I sigh, again dropping the gifts in the living room.

"Where's the book?" I hide the gifts that I for bought them in the room just after I dumped the others in the living room.

"I gave it up to a lying bastard that wanted to give it to his niece. I thought that it was a nice gift from an aspiring writer to an aspiring writer." My mom just smiled as she took the gifts and started packing. I dropped beside her, Christina sitting beside me, passing me a cup of hot chocolate.

 _Christmas Eve. 22:59_

One hour until Christmas. We were all around the living room table. Will and Christina decided to spend Christmas Eve with us. We were playing games for now, waiting for Christmas before we open the gifts.

After one hour of Charades, Monopoly and Uno (it's a surprise how it fit one hour really) it was time to open the gifts.

We pass the gifts to one another. We were going to say our prayers but then the doorbell rang.

We all looked at one another and Caleb rolls his eyes. "I'll get it." he says.

Whoever was outside the door at twelve at the night really took long. It was after about eight minutes when Caleb came back, holding a rather thick looking gift.

"Looks heavy. Who's it for?" I ask him. He grins, "Yours, surprisingly."

I roll my eyes at him and take the gift. Nothing was attached.

"Who is it from?" I ask him.

Caleb shrugs. "He's a worker at that bookstore you often go to, and he says someone left it there for you." Christina teases.

"I can't believe someone actually bought you a book. I would marry that person." Christina says. Will coughs beside him making us laugh.

We say our prayers and then open our gifts.

I open the mysterious gift first and then a note comes out.

 _Hey stranger,_

 _Forgive me for lying. I just love my niece, and she really wanted the book. I hope I can be forgiven and that next time we meet, if ever we meet, I give you permission to throw a book at me, no matter how it weights. Anyways, to compensate for my asshole move, (I'm actually kind of glad that you knew the reference) I bought you three books, because one didn't seem enough. It isn't the book that you want but it's still writing books and I thought it looked interesting._

 _PS. If you don't like it, you can always give it back. Or if you want to thank me or something, just leave a note to JP. (He's the guy that I talked to. The one with big rimmed glasses and always wore a polo.)_

 _PPS. I put the note inside because you might not open the gift if you knew it was from me._

 _PPPS. I'll tell my niece that this gift was from you as it was from me. She'll appreciate it, don't worry._

 _Merry Christmas, stranger. See you soon._

I smile and see the books he gave me. It was _Write-Here-Write-Now, Raw Art Journal-ling_ and _Everything is going to be Okay._ And somehow, as I looked around the house, with my friends and family enjoying the holidays, and the note on my hand, I think that yes, everything just might be okay.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Merry Christmas, guys. Here is a Christmas short.**

 **Anyways, I thought so hard on how I'll actually write this and then, I remembered that I do have a new story on the way and this is some sort of prequel.**

 **Forgive the grammar errors and typo. There are some. (Hopefully, not a lot.)**

 **I hope you enjoyed it.**

 **Review if you have anything to say.**

 **All the love, Eloise. :)**


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